Titanic

15 April in Titanic History

15 April

2:20 a.m.: Titanic sinks with over 1,500 souls lost.

0400: Carpathia arrives and begins recovery operations of lifeboats.  Dawn reveals large icefield and some bergs 200 feet tall.

0730: Californian arrives but only finds Mount Temple. Sights Carpathia.

0830: Carpathia and California alongside. Carpathia requests she continue search for survivors. Californian only finds debris. Carpathia departs for New York.

10:40-11:20: Californian gives up search and departs. Discrepancy between log and Third Officer Groves makes time approximate.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own

Titanic

April 14 in Titanic History

23:40 (11:40 p.m.) Lookouts Fleet and Lee sight iceberg. Bell rung and call to bridge. Murdoch orders helm hard a-starboard and engines reversed. Starboard side scraped by iceberg for 300 feet puncturing hull in various places. Water fills forward compartments. Thomas Andrews informs Captain Smith near midnight Titanic will stay afloat no more than 2 hours.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own.

Titanic

11 April in Titanic History

1. 11:30 (11:30 a.m): Titanic arrives in Queenstown. 120 passengers board. Among those who depart is Frances Brown (later Father Brown, SJ) with his camera and photos of life aboard ship.

2. 13:30 (1:30 p.m.). Titanic departs Queenstown bound for New York with 2,206 passengers and crew.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own.

Titanic

10 April in Titanic History

1. Titanic departs Southampton at 12 noon. While departing, suction from propellors causes New York to break free of moorings. Quick action by tugs and extra speed from Titanic averts collision.

2. 17:30 (5:30 p.m.): Arrival at Cherbourg, France. 274 passengers board including John Jacob Astor. 22 passengers disembark.

3. 20:30 (8:30 p.m.): Departs Cherbourg for Queenstown, ( Cobh), Ireland.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own.

Titanic Cliches

Titanic Cliches of the Day

1. Global Ship Lease uses container ships to move goods you likely purchased online or locally. In theory the company makes a lot of money through fixed leases to transport cargo. But as Motley Fool points out, the company is $600 million in debt and not able to guarantee paying its loan obligations. This fact allows Sean Williams to opine:

“Global Ship Lease (NYSE: GSL) has logged a greater-than-300% gain in the past year, but if its debtors ever get their way, GSL could sink faster than the Titanic.”

Ouch!

Motley Fool, Is This Shipper The Next Titanic?, 21 Jan 2011

2. Pakistan has serious problems and recently began reorganizing the federal cabinet. This provoked harsh criticism as evidenced by an editor in Dawn:

‘In the present climate, that may be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.’

When a government reshuffling gets the Titanic deck chair treatment, you know it looks bad or a bad comedy sketch.

Sify, ‘Pakistan Cabinet Overhaul Like Rearranging Titanic Deck Chairs’, 24 Jan 2011

Titanic Cliches

Titanic Cliche of Day: Porn Like A Party On Titanic

Who mourns for porn? The porn industry is ailing as people have stopped buying and Internet piracy runs rampant. Peter Nowak wrote recently on Ask Men about the death of porn. The article is long and reports on the factors leading to its most serious decline in decades. Nowak then uses the Titanic to make a point:

With its first ever contraction, a decline that doesn’t seem to have an end, what sort of future does the porn business have? Will there even be porn stars to celebrate a few years from now? Or are these AVN Awards just one big party on the Titanic?

So porn is on a sinking ship with water slowly rising above the rails. At least there is no iceberg, no Captain Smith or Lord to blame. And once again Titanic makes an appearance in a way not thought possible in 1912.

Source: Askmen.com, The Death Of Porn, 13 Jan 2011

Titanic, Titanic Exhibitions

Premier Exhibitions: Titanic Makes Money but Bodies Now RIP

Premier Exhibitions, which owns RMS Titanic Inc., and the touring Titanic exhibition, reported its third quarter fiscal results. According to the press release Titanic and other exhibitions made a “gross profit margin of $1.9 million for the quarter and $10.2 million for the nine months ended November 30, 2010.” However the Bodies portion of the business experienced a loss of $2.3 million in the third quarter. The press release states:

“Having identified the main area of challenge within our business, we have decided to discontinue any further self-operated touring Bodies exhibitions, which will materially lessen our financial exposure. We will reduce our inventory of specimens and cut the fixed license costs by $4 million annually.”

Perhaps a main reason for the Bodies losing money is the ongoing controversy about how those “specimens” are acquired for public display. Some argue that the “specimens” coming from China are former prisoners, dissidents, and others who did not voluntarily will their remains for public display. Now that Premier is discontinuing the exhibition, what will happen to those specimens?

Source: The Street, Premier Exhibitions Reports Fiscal 2011 Third Quarter Results, 11 Jan 2011

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